A New Industrial Hydrogen Production Process

ABSTRACT
This study was proposed to develop a new method for hydrogen production in significant amounts. It consisted in using sulfur dioxide (SO2), and discharged from the sulfuric acid (H2SO4) production unit. This process could be considered as an alternative to many classical processes for air quality treatment resulting in as afer environment. Furthermore, it was an innovative method for hydrogen production. In fact, SO2 was fed into a PEM electrolyzer stack. The dissolved SO2 was oxidized at the anode which led to the production of sulfuric acid; whereas, hydrogen (H2) was produced at the cathode. This new method was able to treat 3.7 t/day of SO22 in order to produce 0.116 t/day of hydrogen and recover 5.6 t/day of 35 wt.% H2SO4. Results showed that the studied procedure was more economical in terms of energy consumption than the Westinghouse hybrid process. Hence, 67% of the energy needed for the decomposition step was reduced by our proposed process. After the presentation of the principles of the new process design, each part of the process was sized. The calculations showed that the number of electrolyzers could be calculated using the same formula used for the number of electrolyzers for water electrolysis or flux cell.

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